Roundup: Yahoo and AOL sale, Neighbours, Australian Idol, NFL + more

Yahoo and AOL

• Christian Porter, Steve Barrett, and La Brea

Business of Media

Yahoo and AOL sold – again – for $US5 billion

AOL and Yahoo are being sold again, this time to a private equity firm, reports AFR‘s Michelle Chapman.

Verizon will sell Verizon Media, which consists of the pioneering tech platforms, to Apollo Global Management in a $US5 billion ($6.4 billion) deal.

Verizon said it will keep a 10 per cent stake in the new company, which will be called Yahoo.

Verizon had hoped to ride the acquisition of AOL to a quick entry into the mobile market, spending more than $US4 billion on the company in 2015. The plan was to use the advertising platform pioneered by AOL to sell digital advertising. Two years later, it spent even more to acquire Yahoo and combined the two.

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ABC firm on Christian Porter defence

The ABC is poised to up the ante in its high-stakes legal battle with Christian Porter over allegations it defamed the former ­attorney-general in an online ­article revealing a senior pol­itician had been accused of ­historic sexual assault, reports News Corp’s Steve Jackson.

The public broadcaster has until Tuesday evening to file its defences in the Federal Court. Mr Porter sued the ABC and its star reporter Louise Milligan after the story appeared on February 26. ABC insiders said it remained committed to defending the action and stood by Milligan.

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Shut out from the country, this is how the Australian media covers China

Mike Smith was talking to the Irish Times China correspondent Peter Goff on their way back from Xinjiang, north-west China in 2019, reports SMH’s Eryk Bagshaw.

The Australian Financial Review’s China correspondent and Goff had been invited by China’s State Council to view for themselves what conditions were like in the detention centres that had been built by the dozen across the region.

Instead of perimeter walls, armed guards and torture cells, there were “airy classrooms, cookie-making classes, dancing performances and courtyards filled with daffodils”.

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News Brands

Reporter Steve Barrett ‘was just shaking the tree’

Crime journalist Steve Barrett has told the NSW Supreme Court that he was paid $2000 by a former property developer after he discovered a “smoking gun” in his investigation into Adam Cranston’s alleged role as the ringleader of a $105m tax fraud syndicate following a bugged meeting at a Sydney law firm in February 2017, reports News Corp’s Kieran Gair.

Barrett, who once worked for 60 Minutes, the Seven Network and The Australian, has also claimed that he was “shaking the tree” when he was allegedly caught on tape by federal police blackmailing Cranston with a threat to “interview” his father about the alleged fraud at the Martin Place office of tax lawyer Dev Menon.

Barrett, 63, has been ­accused of threatening to expose the alleged scam, which included Cranston, the son of former deputy ATO commissioner ­Michael Cranston, over his position as the ringleader of a scheme that used straw directors living in “caravan parks” in a bid to mask Plutus Payroll’s alleged illegal operations.

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Television

Ramsay St house sells for $1.6m

The house at 1 Pinoak Court, Vermont South which is known for the TV soap Neighbours sold for $1.6m at the weekend, the first time it has changed hands in 30 years, reports TV Tonight.

The expected price was $1.3m-$1.43m.

Five bidders fought it out for the keys to the home, but the buyers, a couple originally from China, had never heard of Neighbours.

They were also unaware they would have a camera crew filming outside their home a few days a week, but were fine when told the cameras would not be coming inside their home… as well as the location fee stipend in their pockets.

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Melbourne’s LA makeover for US drama La Brea

Hollywood producers are set to recreate LA hot spots in Melbourne for a big budget US network drama — but our glum weather will be replaced by blue sky special effects, reports News Corp’s Nui Te Koha.

David Appelbaum, creator of La Brea, an NBC-TV drama set in Los Angeles, said filming had already started in Melbourne, with Bay St, Port Melbourne, replicating Wiltshire Boulevard in mid-town LA, and Kew’s Yarra Boulevard cast as a match for the Hollywood Hills.

On Monday, at an announcement event at Docklands Studios, Victorian Creative Industries Minister Danny Pearson said the project will inject $60 million into the Victorian economy, and create work for 295 local businesses, and jobs for 290 cast and crew.

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Rob Mills wants to host Australian Idol revival

Former Australian Idol finalist Rob Mills has his eye on a new TV gig for 2022, reports TV Tonight.

Last week on the blue carpet for RuPaul’s Drag Race: Down Under with partner, ABC’s Georgie Tunny, he told TV Tonight, “TV wise, it’s been a lot of meetings. So who knows? But wouldn’t it be great if there was an Australian Idol alumni to host a new series of Australian Idol?

“Wouldn’t that be some great synergy?”

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Sport

Amazon Gets Exclusive NFL Rights One Year Early

Just a few weeks after the league inked a $100 billion-plus TV deal with Disney, NBCUniversal, Fox, CBS and Amazon, the tech giant is swooping in to snag even more exclusive NFL games, reports The Hollywood Reporter‘s Alex Weprin.

Amazon has struck a deal to take over exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football one year early, buying out the games that had been set to air on Fox. Amazon had been set to get exclusive rights beginning in 2023, now they will get them starting in 2022.

Terms of the deal will be the same as those announced last month, with Amazon airing 15 games exclusively per season.

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